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Berkeley graduate McCurdy can’t wait to play the Greek 

It’s every musician’s dream to play the biggest venue in the town he grew up in. This Saturday, Berkeley High graduate Xan McCurdy will live that dream, as he revisits the stage where in the late 1980s he received his high school diploma. This weekend, he will take to that very stage with a guitar strapped over his shoulder. 

As part of the Unlimited Sunshine tour, McCurdy’s band Cake will perform their upbeat, quirky rock numbers at the festival next to the likes of the Flaming Lips, Kinky, the Hackensaw Boys, De La Soul and Modest Mouse at the Greek Theater.  

The Berkeley Daily Planet spoke with McCurdy before the tour’s first show in St. Louis. 

Daily Planet: Is (the Unlimited Sunshine Tour) one of the biggest crowds you’ve played for? 

McCurdy: Well, it’ll be the biggest crowd that sort of feels like a crowd that’s on our side. We’ve played festival shows where you’re on the bill with these other large rock bands who are popular at the moment, and those have very large crowds, but they’re people who aren’t necessarily there to see us. Sometimes they even get upset that we aren’t more heavy metal. 

Daily Planet: I thought you guys are pretty popular? 

McCurdy: Well yeah, but it’s easy to feel discouraged, even when there’s a crowd of 20,000 people. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel discouraged if a hundred of them don’t like you. 

Daily Planet: It’s pretty amazing how many musicians grew up in Berkeley and went to Berkeley High. 

McCurdy: Who are you talking about, Kevin Cadogan, Charlie Hunter?  

Daily Planet: Joshua Redman too... When you went to BHS did you play in bands, play around town? 

McCurdy: I did.  

Daily Planet: Did you play with (former Third Eye Blind guitar player) Kevin Cadogan at all? 

McCurdy: I never played with Kevin Cadogan no. I only smoked pot with Kevin Cadogan... I had this band called the Assortments... and we played sixties covers and some songs by the Jam and the Specials. I think we may have only played once at a party and at the Berkeley Square. Sort of like a weird mod band.  

Daily Planet: When did you join Cake exactly? 

McCurdy: Cake has four records out and I joined near the end of the third one (1998’s Prolonging the Magic) so I played a little bit on the third one but I joined right in time to tour for that record. I played two years for that record and then did this last record.  

Daily Planet: The guitar stuff on the last album is very active. Do you write the lead parts or does John (McCrea guitarist/lead singer) come up with them and teach them to you? 

McCurdy: I come up with my parts. Sometimes John walks in to the rehearsal space and he says, “Look here I’ve got this riff...” 

Daily Planet: What’s a song off the last album which would be an example of that? 

McCurdy: “Comfort Eagle.” That’s his riff, that’s the whole song. And so that’s what he had going on, that’s what he wanted to do with it. But you know “Love you Madly”? That’s all mine. He didn’t know what to do. The way it usually works is John shows up to rehearsal studio with three chords, a lyric and a melody. 

Daily Planet: That’s rock n’roll. 

McCurdy: And it’s vague but he doesn’t know what the hell to do with it after that point. And then he’ll sit there and play it and whatever we try and go for, then we go for it. And as far as songwriting, anyone can go for it... The way we’ve been assembling songs lately is really democratic. It’s like, “Wow, that’s cool, let’s do what they’re doing.” 

Daily Planet: I didn’t know you wrote “Love you Madly.” 

McCurdy: No, I just wrote the parts. He had the vocal and the two chords and the melody. Everyone else comes up with their parts. I’m not a songwriter. I spent years playing with my good friend Bart Davenport who was the songwriter – we played together since sixth grade, and I was the guitar player and we sort of let that dynamic go where I worked on playing guitar and he sang and did songwriting. I’m bummed I didn’t pay more attention to (songwriting) way back in the day. I like writing parts. I don’t have any lofty goals of trying to express a heavy lyrical sentiment. I sort of feel like I’d rather come up with incredibly groovy stuff that rocks on guitar – that’s enough to satisfy me. 

Daily Planet: What modern guitarists or bands do you admire the most? 

McCurdy: Well, I like all the Berkeley guys. Eric McFadden, Bart Davenport is a really great guitar player too. I always come up with a mental block about other bands. 

Daily Planet: So back to the festivals. Did you have a good time playing Coachella? 

McCurdy: Yeah, Coachella was cool. Festivals are always difficult. For us, we’re not a band that can throw a wall of Marshall stacks on and crank it to 10 and scream and it works. We’re kinda more rinky-dinky where it’s sort of like levels have to be right. Things have to interlock and work. Sometimes our keyboard line sounds funny if the guitar isn’t quite in the mix right with it. Festivals are hard to because you’re outdoors and you don’t get a soundcheck. You just run out on stage and hope that it all works out.  

Daily Planet: Does it? 

McCurdy: Most festivals you sit there and listen to one Pearl Jam rip-off band after another. Fifteen in a row, in a hundred degree weather. And kids love it. Loving everyone of them. And you’re just like, “Wow, man. How did I get here?”  

Daily Planet: But then, you guys are playing a festival. 

McCurdy: Well, yeah, there you go, what’s up with that? They are hard. Because of large crowds like that, where you don’t know if people really like you, you have to concentrate on trying to make good music for your own pleasure while you’re playing. 

I mean I’m being really hard on myself and the band when I talk like this because we’re damn good… but to try and make good music at a festival is really difficult. It’s difficult not for us but difficult for everybody. Usually the people who enjoy doing festivals the most are the people haven’t done it very much, because it’s just a visceral thrill to see all those bodies out there. It’s the party thing. But I think for most people it wears off pretty quickly.  

But if you’ve got your own show that’s got a bazillion people, that’s a little different. If they paid to see you, it’s more your party. And that becomes more like a family. Maybe some people would call that preaching to the converted but I don’t. I like surrounding myself with my friends with people I dig.  

Daily Planet: You’re gonna be playing the same place you graduated high school. How does that feel? 

McCurdy: Yeah, I’ve never played the Greek, man, I’m thrilled by it. I can’t tell you how excited I am. Any musician who grew up in Berkeley is pretty excited to play the damn Greek.